In recent years, it has been common practice to include foam cushions in a package in order to cushion and protect delicate articles contained in the package during handling and shipping. In one typical arrangement, two pieces of flat foam material are employed to make the two cushion inserts for one package. In this method, at least one of the two flat foam pieces for the package is contour cut, so that a section is removed from the flat foam to form a cutout area which is shaped so as to match the shape of the article to be placed therein. The cutout section is discarded and is not used in the package. Then, the contour cut piece of foam material is placed on one wall of the package, and another piece of flat foam material is placed on an opposite wall of the package. The article to be packaged is placed in the cutout area of the foam material, and when the package is closed, the article is cushioned between the two pieces of foam material.
Although the foregoing process produces a satisfactory product, the process is uneconomical and wasteful, since two separate pieces of flat foam material are required to form the cushion inserts for one package. In addition, it is also wasteful to discard and not use the section cutout of the foam material. For these reasons, such a process has not been completely satisfactory.
Broadly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved method which overcomes the aforesaid problems. Specifically, it is within the contemplation of the present invention to provide an improved method which only requires one piece of foam material to form the two cushion inserts for each package by utilizing the section removed from the piece of foam material as one of the foam cushion inserts.
It is a further object of the present invention to form the two convoluted cushion inserts for a package from a single piece of foam material to provide a highly economical and efficient manner of making such packages.